


black pear tree

by kylonaberrie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: (sort of), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Dark Rey, Everybody's Autistic, Everybody's Trans, F/F, Female Finn (Star Wars), Female Kylo Ren, Force-Sensitive Finn, Knight of Ren Finn, Knight of Ren Rey, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Non-binary Rey (Star Wars), Not Reylo, Occupational Gender, Other, Past Abuse, Politics, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Rey accepts Kylo's offer to rule the galaxy, Rey and Kylo Ren Friendship, Supreme Leader Kylo Ren, The Knights of Ren are all in love with each other, Trans Finn (Star Wars), Trans Kylo Ren, Trans Phasma, Trans Rose Tico, Trauma Recovery, at least not in the traditional sense, moiraillegiance, possible Kylux, redemption arc for the entire First Order
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-15
Updated: 2019-02-05
Packaged: 2019-07-12 13:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 18,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15996263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylonaberrie/pseuds/kylonaberrie
Summary: Kylo asks Rey to join her. Rey asks Kylo to call off the attack on the Resistance Fleet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> content warnings for:
> 
> \- descriptions of flashbacks, panic attacks, and other variants on flipping the fuck out  
> \- minor vomit stuff  
> \- emotional manipulation  
> \- past (canonesque) abuse, violence, torture, mind invasion shit, yknow the usual  
> \- various other mental illness shit  
> \- moral ambiguity & forgiving people for things that really aren't forgivable
> 
> not yet but probably in the future: disordered eating, drugs/alcohol
> 
> content high fives for:
> 
> \- so many lesbians  
> \- everyone is trans. you probably saw the tag up there but if you didn't just know that every single person you see in this fic is trans  
> \- this polyamorous relationship could cover all of seattle by 2021, scientists warn  
> \- this is space but i literally don't bother to put in any space stuff they eat stuff like sushi and nachos and have metaphors about horses  
> \- roombas with knives taped to them  
> \- the stormtrooper revolution  
> \- redemption arc for literally everyone
> 
> if there's a new warning, i'll add it here, and also add a note at the start of the chapter that contains it so old readers know there's been an addition. i'll also update the tags if there's any new prominent relationships, i tagged what i think are gonna be the main ones but also there'll be people interacting all over the place
> 
> this is basically canon compliant with star wars up until the point it diverges from, which is [this scene.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNQYDNKVDuo) though there's a lot of playing fast and loose with established canon, including messing with the timeline and like, serious (re?)interpretation of the inner workings of the first order. (occupational gender! god i love occupational gender)
> 
> also i completely ignore the phasma novel. i got like 2/3 through the phasma novel before being like what is this edgy bullshit i just wanna stan a stormtrooper gal
> 
> this was some shit that occurred to me while i was watching tlj for the first time, pretty psyched to finally get around to writing it.
> 
> yall like the knights of ren? youre getting some knights of ren

_i saw the future in a dream last night_  
somebody’s gonna get hurt, somebody’s gonna get hurt  
i hope it’s not me  
but i suspect it’s going to have to be 

[\-- the mountain goats & kaki king, "black pear tree"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QymCgh5x-H0)

  


Rey looks into Kylo’s eyes. They’re shining, desperate, pleading. She looks at her outstretched hand, clothed in black leather. She’s speaking before she realises it. ‘Order your ships to stop firing.’

She feels the pause that gives Kylo, hears it in the little intake of breath. She looks up to meet her eyes again, and this time her own are set, determined. She doesn’t know what she’s doing, but she knows she has to try. The Resistance is steadily being picked off ship by ship. Luke is not going to help them. Kylo is their only hope.

She looks Kylo dead in the eye, and _hopes._

The seconds tick by. What’ll happen if she accepts, Rey thinks, and her stomach feels like it doesn’t exist anymore. What’ll happen if she doesn’t.

‘Okay,’ Kylo says.

Rey lets out a breath she’d been holding in, a gasp that comes out as half relief and half desperate fear. She places her hand in Kylo’s, quickly, as though if she doesn’t rip it off all at once the bandage will dangle on her forever. ‘Now call off your ships!’ she growls, suddenly laced with panic, with the need to move, and shakes Kylo’s hand violently as though she would have liked to shake her by the shoulders. Kylo wrests her hand free and snatches her comlink from where it’s clipped to her belt. ‘Hux.’

Rey can’t hear the reply from where Kylo has moved a few steps away, just the tinny murmur of a higher pitched man’s voice.

‘Are you on the bridge?’

‘Why aren’t you on the bridge?’

‘You-- what? Don’t-- don’t kill them.’ Rey’s attention perks. ‘Who’s on the bridge?’

Hux answers, and begins to say something else reduced to a yelled mess of indistinguishable syllables, but Kylo hangs up on him and comms presumably the bridge. ‘Yago! Call off the attack on the Resistance! There’s been a change of plans.’

Yago, at least, doesn’t sound like they’re shouting. ‘You heard me,’ Kylo snarls, and Rey tears herself away from watching this exchange to look out the magnified viewport. Sure enough, the green laser bolts pursuing the Resistance fleet have ceased. Her entire body sags with relief, and she turns back around to look at Kylo. She’s still talking into the comlink - ‘No, send out ships to form a blockade, but don’t kill anyone, just prevent them from leaving--’ - but Rey stops listening as it sinks in what she just agreed to.

She just agreed to rule the galaxy.

Well. At least Finn, and Leia, and everyone else in her first real family, will live. And-- she’s going to make the most of it. That’s what she thought leading up to this moment, she thinks. Kylo wants them to rule together. She can help make it a better place. A better regime.

The future feels desolate and cold and empty, like the bitter nights during Jakku’s darker season. There is nothing but darkness and loneliness and sand going on forever, and the idiots who think travelling by night will spare them the sun don’t think of the frostbite, or the scorpions, or that they don’t know where the sinking sands lay. Rey spent nights like those curled up with a poncho and every blanket she owned, strategically placed to cover every cranny where the cold air could seep in and get her.

She left her poncho back on the Falcon.

Chewie, she thinks, and her heart sinks into the void her stomach left her for. Chewie’s going to be waiting for her. Chewie’s not going to know she’s not coming back. The Resistance isn’t going to know she’s not coming back.

With great effort she tears herself away from the gaping maw of eternity and back to the present. Kylo is talking on the comlink. Rey talks loudly enough to drown what she’s saying out. Reality is catching up, mainly the last snippet of orders she actually caught. A blockade. ‘What are you going to do with them?’

Kylo looks up in mild surprise, falling silent. The voice on the other end of the comlink, Hux’s again, shouts louder, and she thinks she catches a few curse words. ‘I’m not going to hurt them,’ Kylo says, calmly, reassuringly, and Hux falls silent. His next sentence is a low hiss.

‘Come to the fucking throne room,’ Kylo says into the comlink. ‘And get someone out there to retrieve the empty ships.’ She hangs up on Hux’s reply again, and turns to face Rey. ‘I’m not going to hurt them,’ she repeats.

Rey realises there’s still tears on her face, and wipes them off. ‘You better not. What are you going to do?’

That gives Kylo a moment’s pause. Her hand freezes mid conversational gesture, lips parted, looking at the wall somewhere to the side. She reanimates after a moment, continuing the reaching gesture as if nothing happened. ‘What about a peace treaty?’

‘A peace treaty.’

‘Well, if I’m not going to kill them, I can’t have them throwing themselves at me. They’ve lost, anyway. We control the entire outer rim, and they can fit their entire army on a handful of transports. If I had let the attack continue, they would be dead. Gone. Debris in space.’ She keeps gesturing vaguely, like her hand is wandering off on its own. ‘So I’ll give them the chance to live. They all get to live, I won’t even lock them up. They disband the Resistance, and they get to live whatever lives they want out in the galaxy.’

‘And what if they refuse?’

‘You’re going to come with me to make sure that doesn’t happen.’

Rey closes her mouth, a lump forming in her throat. She swallows. This is... oh, fuck it, she can’t even try to tell herself this is what she wanted. It’s by no stretch of the imagination what she wanted. But it could be worse. ‘Okay,’ she says, weakly.

Kylo nods with a sort of finality. After a moment of looking vaguely at the floor she supplies, ‘Hux is on his way.’

‘That’s-- I heard his name mentioned a few times, back in the Resistance.’ The past tense comes naturally, which she’d prefer not to think about.

‘They would know about him. He’s our best general. M-- my. Best general.’

Rey doesn’t miss the stammer. ‘Isn’t “ours” correct?’ she asks, feeling like finding the borders of her new position. ‘Yours and mine?’

Kylo looks up suddenly, like a pet promised a treat. ‘Yes,’ she says quickly. ‘Yes, he’s-- ours. They’re all ours.’ A tiny, hopeful smile quirks the edge of her mouth. Rey gains more data on how to manage the situation by the second. She can do this, she thinks. Kylo can still be saved. The galaxy can still be saved. She saved the Resistance, and that was step one.

‘So what did you mean, earlier, “don’t kill them”? Who were you talking about?’

‘Your friends. He said they captured two rebel infiltrators.’

Rey’s heart plummets all over again. ‘But you told him not to kill them.’

‘Yes, so, they won’t. When he called me back I told him to have them moved to a cell until I give further orders. We can deliver them back to the Resistance when we go to offer them a treaty. We should do that soon.’ She hesitates for a moment, wets her lips. ‘Understand, Rey, that we’re the highest ranking people in this army. In this nation. In this entire galaxy.’ Her eyes are intent. ‘Me, and then you, and only by the smallest margin to settle disputes. They will do whatever you say.’

Rey feels sick to her stomach, but she tries to settle it. They have rank order in the Resistance, after all, and she never objected to that. Maybe because the worst acting beyond your rank would get you there was a thorough shaming, as she witnessed in the few weeks she spent with them between Starkiller and Ahch-To. Here it feels... wrong. But this is her life now, she reminds herself. And she’s going to make it better. The galaxy can still be saved. What better place to save it from than the top? She gets the feeling it won’t be that easy, but you never know.

She also caught that she won’t be top dog. But she’s learning to push Kylo’s buttons, and if she’s reading this correctly, that will get her a long, long way.

She nods to Kylo’s words. ‘Alright.’ 

Kylo nods too, satisfied. ‘What do you want your title to be?’

‘My-- my what?’

‘Your title. I thought I could introduce you to Hux by it when he gets here. I think I’m Supreme Leader now, though I think I like Empress better, or Queen. We could both be Empress. We could both be Queen.’

‘Oh. Um--’ She blinks. This is not a question she would have ever expected to be asked in her life. She does her best to give it genuine thought. Supreme Leader Rey makes her feel oogie all over, but Empress Rey isn’t nearly as bad. Or Queen Rey, though she thinks Empress strikes her fancy a bit better, since that seems to be what Kylo’s asking. She doesn’t even have a surname to go with it, and that brings an entirely different stab to her throat. Not the time, she tells herself. It’s title time. She glimpses humour in that thought, and it’s strange and relieving in this barren landscape.

So, Empress Rey. Or something else. Princess Rey makes her want to pull a face. Knight Rey is probably too Jedi, though isn’t Kylo a knight? Her current title’s Lady, though, isn’t it. Lady Rey. She likes that one. It’s humble, not too ostentatious. It doesn’t throw her into being a figurehead. She can imagine herself standing beside Kylo’s throne in holos of historical events. It makes her a lot more comfortable than the idea of having a throne herself, if she could ever be comfortable in this situation. ‘Can I just be Lady Rey?’

Kylo looks at her a little strangely. ‘Yes, of course. My knights - my sisters - they’ll all remain Ladies. That works. I can fill Snoke’s throne; you can fill mine.’ She lets out a breath. ‘I suppose it’d be too much work to change my title from Supreme Leader to Empress. People are used to saying Supreme Leader.’ She furrows her brow. She doesn’t look at Rey while she talks, instead addressing the wall. ‘But Empress could symbolise a new beginning, I... I don’t want to be another Snoke.’

‘New beginnings are good.’

Kylo nods, still not looking at her. ‘Yes. They are.’

‘Let the past die. That’s what you told me.’ Kylo looks at her, that naked surprise at gaining Rey’s attention on her face again, so Rey keeps going. ‘If you don’t want to be another Snoke, you can’t just take his throne. You need to change how you do things. What made Snoke Snoke?’

‘He--’ her voice catches on a thought. ‘He...’ the rest of her sentence is lost in a mumble.

‘Sorry, didn’t catch that.’

‘He--’ Kylo’s voice sticks again. Instead of finishing her sentence she hisses softly, a small, animal noise.

Rey feels her heart softening and tightening at once. She was always sympathetic to those who had been hurt, even when it came to fights for survival on Jakku. It’s why she always dreamed of joining the Resistance. To save the galaxy. The galaxy can still be saved, she repeats like a mantra. Kylo can still be saved.

‘I know he hurt you,’ she says softly, her two sides warring within her: the side that sees a hurt girl, and the side that just almost saw her friends murdered. But she already decided which one should win. Doesn’t mean she shouldn’t keep the other in her pocket. ‘I know it-- probably hurts to think about.’ Goodness knows some - who is she kidding, most - of her memories are.

Kylo nods, lips pressed together. Rey continues, ‘But you must think about it, so you know what not to do. You don’t have to figure it out right now. But he hurt so many people. He hurt you. You don’t have to do that to anyone else.’

Kylo makes a small noise, almost like a laugh. ‘Sometimes to hurt is the only way forwards.’

‘Sure, if you decide it is. There’s always another way forwards. But sometimes it depends on what path you paved for yourself. I-- I don’t want to pave one of hurt, with you.’

Kylo makes another small noise, less like a laugh, and it’s then that the door opens, and General Hux hurries in.

He’s not what Rey pictured. He’s dinky and must be wearing about twelve layers. Probably has poor circulation, given that he looks like Rey could snap him in two. His skin is nearly white, and he looks almost as ill as Kylo does, which is saying something. The door closes automatically behind him, and Rey can see the horror sink into his eyes as they take in the scene before him: Rey, Kylo, the halves of Snoke, the burning banners, the corpses of the Praetorian Guards, Rey’s lightsaber in Kylo’s hands, the soot and scrapes of battle on both of their bodies.

‘What,’ he breathes through clenched teeth, ‘Happened?’

‘General,’ Kylo says, ‘Meet the Lady Rey.’

The silence that overtakes the room is so empty Rey can hear her own heartbeat.

‘What the _fuck,’_ Hux enunciates, ‘Happened.’

‘Snoke is dead,’ Kylo offers.

‘I can see that.’ He’s still hissing his words through his teeth, somehow clearly pronouncing every syllable all the same, eyes wild, seething. Rey’s reminded of children on Jakku searching for meals. He has the same spark of desperation. ‘Why? How?’

Kylo opens her mouth and closes it again. Did she not plan what she was going to say to Hux when he got here? After a couple moments of Kylo failing to produce more than a stammering noise, Rey takes matters into her own hands. ‘We killed him.’

All of both Hux’s and Kylo’s attention shifts to her. She stands her ground. ‘He was rotting the Order from the inside out. I used to work for the Resistance, but Kylo--’ she wets her lips, takes a sharp breath, keeps going ‘--Kylo, convinced me otherwise. The Resistance has lost, I see that now.’ The half-lie brings a pain to her chest. The Resistance may have lost, she thinks determinedly, but it lives on in me. ‘We were fools to begin with. When the real power to govern lies with the Order. Not only have you won but you have the strength to carry through and take care of your people. I wanted to be a part of that, and Kylo was kind enough to offer me a place among her knights. But Snoke refused to take me. He said I was too tainted by the light side, and ordered Kylo to kill me.’ The words are coming out mechanically now. She’s barely even thinking about them, or what her body’s doing, holding one elbow nervously. ‘Kylo-- refused. We overpowered him and his guards together. But before that, he was-- gloating. About how he’d manipulated us, manipulated everyone. He only had his own interests at heart. A man like that doesn’t deserve to control everything you’ve built. I’m honored to be here, to be part of your Order, but I don’t regret what we just did.’

Silence follows this pronouncement, thicker but far less empty than before. She breaks it by bowing to Hux. ‘I understand you’re part of the top leadership here. It’s an honor to meet you, and I look forwards to working together.’

Hux watches her, then turns to sneer at Kylo. ‘Together?’

Kylo bristles. ‘She’s mine. She’s a Knight. She’s my queen. I’m the highest ranking person left.’

‘Yes, because you _killed_ our supreme leader! Tell me why I shouldn’t have you shot for treason right now!’

‘Because I am the supreme leader!’ Kylo _snarls,_ and it’s sudden and forceful and frightening, really, this deep feral noise from her throat, hair moving with the force of her shoulders as she lunges towards Hux. Rey steps back on instinct, but all Kylo does is grab the front of Hux’s shirt and hold her face inches from his. Hux, to his credit, doesn't flinch, just leans back slightly with a look of equal disgust and alarm.

‘Snoke hurt you, too,’ Kylo breathes, speaking softly but still in that wild-eyed growl. Something of panic is flashing in Hux's eyes. ‘Constantly toyed with you. Denied you. But I've seen what you're capable of. He was a fool to throw away your talents just to keep you on a string. Help me, and I'll give you the position you deserve.’

Rey can see some very fast thinking happening behind those pale blue eyes. She really hopes that the best the First Order has to offer hasn't failed to notice that Kylo is holding a lightsaber.

‘Long live,’ Hux says with an icy recovering grace, ‘The supreme leader.'

Kylo's face curls into a catlike triumphant smile. She releases Hux and steps back. 'I was thinking I might be Empress, actually.’

'I wouldn't advise trying to acclimate people to a new title at the same time as acclimating them to your leadership.’

‘Why not? If I do it gradually they’re just going to get more and more pissed off. I want to usher in a new era. I want things to be different now and I think we should change them all at once.’ She looks Hux right in the eyes, her own shining and intent. Rey’s had that look directed at her a few times in the past. It’s hard to escape that look. You have to hold tight to everything you think and want or you’ll get swept away. Rey might not have much faith in Kylo’s leadership abilities, but she will make a _very_ good face for the empire.

Something in Rey stills as she realises she’s already thinking like the empire is hers.

Hux stares Kylo down for a few moments before turning away and breaking the eye contact. ‘Very well, my Empress. We’ll have to work fast. Who else do you trust?’

‘Phasma.’ Rey’s heard about Phasma from Finn. She isn’t sure how she feels about this. Then again, this entire organisation murdered several billion people. Her mind starts racing. What is she doing here? Why is she _doing_ this? Why is she shaking hands with the people who represent everything she despises? Her breath feels caught in her throat, and she misses what Kylo and Hux are saying to each other next. The room is swimming around her. What the fuck is she doing. What the fuck is happening.

The galaxy can still be saved, she clings to like a lifeline. The galaxy can still be saved. The galaxy can still be saved.

She blinks, and Kylo is standing in front of her, startlingly close. She stumbles back. ‘Shh, it’s okay.’ Kylo says, softly, tenderly. ‘You’re overwhelmed.’

Rey looks up into the face of the murderer barely feet from her and almost lashes out on instinct. Kylo is so, so much bigger than she is. She catches herself. ‘I...’

‘You need to rest,’ Kylo says. ‘I’ll take you back to my quarters. Hux and I can work on how to explain what happened to everyone, and you can join us when you’re ready. It’ll take a few days for the dust to finish settling, anyway.’

Rey can’t respond. She can barely keep breathing. Kylo holds out her hand. ‘Come on.’

Rey looks at the hand, her vision tunnelling. This is what got her into this mess in the first place. She sways where she stands.

‘Come on,’ Kylo coaxes, and it’s light and gentle but feels so, so insidious.

Rey takes her hand. She feels like she’s come back down, but she feels so tired. She remembers what she’s doing here, remembers everything that happened and that this is the right choice, the fruitful choice, but otherwise her mind is blank. Her eyelids feel heavy, and she’s not sure she can stop her mouth from hanging slightly open. The soot is itchy on her skin, and her cuts burn. She’s sweaty and sticky and hot. She wishes she were back on Jakku, sitting in the moonlight in the soft, cool sand, and being able to rub her body clean. She wishes she were back with the Resistance, where the sonic showers were free and open for use. She wishes she were back with her friends.

Suddenly she remembers the captive Resistance operatives. ‘Can I see my friends?’ She’s still incredibly tired, standing with her shoulders slumped, but the thought fills her with hope. She’s not completely alone.

‘Yes,’ Kylo says, quelling the look Hux gives her with a glance. ‘I’ll have them brought to my quarters.’

Rey was expecting to have to visit them in the detention block. Kylo seems to be trying to be nice to her, though she suspects her quarters won’t be any less of a cage. At least she’ll get to bathe. And maybe, for a little, rest.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> like, i could make up space food and space shampoo scents, but i could also not do that

Rey can’t help spacing out on the short walk to Kylo’s quarters. She barely notices the people they pass in the halls, and that Hux has split off from them. She can’t wait to be alone, and then, to be with friends. Not with this shadow of a monster who in a single moment got her to give up everything.

She doesn’t notice they’ve arrived until Kylo says so. This whole place, including Kylo’s quarters, is black, black floor, black walls, black furniture, the occasional red and black banner breaking up the monotony. Would it kill them to decorate? It’s almost as bad as the endless brown of Jakku. At least there she could see the sky.

‘You can use the computer to comm me when you’re ready,’ Kylo is saying. ‘Or to order food, or clothing, or anything you want. You should get yourself some new clothing. It’ll be good if you blend in a little more. There’s a washing droid in the fresher for what you have now, though. And I’ll get you your own quarters once we’ve figured more of this out.’

Rey vaguely takes all of this in. Kylo’s demeanour is soft and nervous again, like it was before Hux showed up. She isn’t sure if it’s because of Hux or because of her, and while this vaguely pings as an important distinction she doesn’t have enough of her faculties to figure it out. ‘I-- I know this is a lot for you,’ Kylo continues. ‘I want-- I want you to be happy here. I want you to feel at home. I-- I never felt like I had a home until I had the Knights. I hope you’ll come to feel that way too.’

Amidst her tired emotions Rey feels a shiver of anger. The Resistance is her home. And Kylo took her away from them. It doesn’t matter that Rey went willingly. Kylo still offered the ultimatum that pushed her there. Kylo would never have saved her family if there wasn’t something in it for her. Rey looks at her with heavy, dead eyes. Kylo squirms under it, toying with her hands. Good, Rey finds herself thinking. She’s here because the galaxy can still be saved. But she doesn’t care right now if Kylo Ren can.

She finds her voice. ‘I’d like to rest.’ It’s hoarse and hard.

‘Of course, my Lady.’

Rey doesn’t look at Kylo as she sweeps awkwardly from the room. She knows she’s trying to manipulate her, whether consciously or not. Be nice to her, but in the frame of what she is to become. What Kylo wants her to become. She leans back on the closed door and sinks to the floor. She’s in this situation now, for better or for worse. Doesn’t mean she has to take the bait layed for her. She will remember who she is. She has spent her entire life remembering who she is.

She lets out a stifled sob and buries her face in her hands. They’re gross, covered in soot and sweat and a smear of blood. She realises that Kylo still has Luke’s lightsaber.

Kylo still has Luke’s lightsaber.

She starts wailing in earnest, curled up with her arms around her knees. She hasn’t cried like this in years. Jakku has a way of teaching you to stop crying. There are new horrors ahead, each new day promises. Are you really going to waste your energy grieving?

But this is worse. She may have food and clothes and a bath freely open to her, but this is much, much worse.

She sits there crying for a long time. She doesn’t know how long it is before she’s interrupted by a buzzing noise behind her.

She looks around with a start, realising it’s the door. Someone is asking to come in. Or something. She gets quickly to her feet, sorrow suddenly flooded with excitement. The Resistance operatives. Friendly faces in all of this. She scans the door for a panel, and slams her hand into the biggest button she sees. The door slides open with a soft whoosh, revealing--

Finn. And someone else, and a pair of stormtroopers. But Finn. Finn’s face slides into something resembling shock and joy, and something blossoms pink and orange and yellow and full of life inside Rey, relief and joy and love like she’s never felt before, not on Starkiller, not ever on Jakku. She feels like there’s more emotion than could possibly be inside her, that choked feeling again but instead of making the world swim it’s making everything fall into perfect clarity. She barrels forward the few steps between them and into Finn’s arms, nearly knocking her over, but Finn hugs her back just as tight. Rey isn’t sure if she’s laughing or crying, but she thinks Finn is doing the former, squeezing her so hard her ribs hurt but she doesn’t care. She doesn’t care about anything, it’s all going to be okay, Finn is here and Finn is okay and Finn is with her. It’s all going to be okay.

She hears one of the stormtroopers start to speak and the moment is over. She loosens her grip on Finn enough to land back on the balls of her feet, though still with her hands on her. She never wants to take her hands off her again. Her face hurts with how wide she’s smiling, and Finn’s eyes are searching her face in question even as she’s smiling herself, half happiness and half pure relief.

‘--lock you in here,’ the stormtrooper on the left is saying.

‘Okay,’ Rey says without thinking. ‘Come inside.’ She leads Finn inside by her upper arm, refusing to cease contact. The other person trots in after them but Rey still only has eyes for Finn as the door whooshes back shut behind them.

‘Rey--’ Finn says, and Rey wants to throw herself back in her arms just hearing her voice. She doesn’t, though. They need to talk. ...They can cuddle while talking.

‘Come sit down,’ Rey says, leading Finn further into the apartment, and actually beginning to register its contents. It’s all black, surprise surprise, with no decorations or personal effects. There’s a kitchen off the sitting room, which contains a couple of leather sofas and a coffee table. Rey sits down on one of the former, and Finn sits down next to her. Rey instantly cuddles up against her, burying her face in the crook of her neck. She hadn’t realised just how much she missed her, missed this, not just in the wake of today but on Ahch-To, too, away from the Resistance and the first positive physical contact she’s ever had in her life, not just with Finn, but with everyone, Poe and Leia and Chewie and Jess and all the others. But Finn is-- Finn. The last time Rey saw her she was in a coma. But here she is, alive and well and as sweaty as Rey is and-- dressed in a First Order officer’s uniform?

She uncuddles just enough to pick up her head to get a better look at Finn. Her hair is clipped up in a tiny stupid top knot, finally long enough for it. She’s wearing a clean-lined black uniform, much like Hux’s, except it doesn’t quite fit her. She’s also still wearing that look of shocked, joyful relief, mirrored on Rey’s own face. ‘What happened?’ Rey asks.

‘I was just about to ask you the same thing,’ Finn says. ‘Oh-- this is Rose. Rose, this is Rey.’ She holds out the hand that isn’t currently around Rey’s back in order to indicate the other person in the room, who has sunk onto the other sofa awkwardly and who Rey suddenly remembers exists, despite sitting directly across from them. They’re cute, Rey thinks. They’re short and round-faced and dressed in a slightly better-fitting uniform, navy this time. Their black hair, stringy with sweat, falls around their face in a bob. Rey’s glad they’re all sweaty together. It’s a sort of camaraderie.

‘She/her,’ Rose says, raising a nervous hand in greeting. That was something that took Rey some getting used to in the Resistance, though it makes a lot of sense.

‘Me too.’

Rose nods, and then looks at Finn. ‘This is who you were trying to save, isn’t it.’

It’s barely a question. A note of red flushes Finn’s face. Rey asks, ‘What do you mean?’

‘We met when she was trying to jump ship,’ Rose says with a nod of her head to indicate Finn.

‘Finn!’ Finn blushes deeper. ‘I thought you were over that.’

Rose smiles. It looks like she finds it strange on her face, like she’s surprised that she knows how. ‘You’re-- you’re telling me that she tried it before?’

‘Well, we weren’t really with the Resistance at the time, but we had to get BB-8 to them--’

‘Oh, fuck,’ Finn says. ‘BB-8.’

‘What about them?’

‘They were with us, I don’t know what happened to them when we were captured--’

‘I can ask Kylo about them.’

The silence that fills the room is deafening.

‘Y-- you...’ Rose starts, and then trails off. Finn is just looking at Rey, that piercing, searching look she gets when she knows there’s something she needs to find, or make another person find in her.

‘Rey,’ she says, firmly and warily, ‘What did you do?’

Rey swallows. She feels shaky and that she is no longer in the room, even though she can feel Finn still pressed warm against her. ‘I saved the Resistance,’ she says, ‘By giving myself up.’

 _‘No,’_ Finn says, sudden and loud, and she grabs Rey, who is numb enough again to not be startled by it. Finn holds her close to her chest, saying, ‘No, no, no, no--’ as though that will change anything. Rey stares blankly at the coffee table and Rose’s knees. Finn rocks back and forth with her. ‘What do you mean you gave yourself up?’ Rose asks.

Rey registers the question a few seconds after she voices it. ‘Kylo, she--’ Finn falls quiet too, listening, still rocking. Rey tries again. ‘She wanted me.’

‘Wanted you how?’ Finn’s voice is louder than usual.

‘She’s-- lonely, I think. I’m like her. She wanted a right hand. Like she was to Snoke.’

‘You’re nothing like her,’ Finn growls, while Rose asks, ‘What do you mean, “was”?’

Silence fills the room again. Finn is still rocking. Rey has no feelings about this, or really, anything. ‘We killed him,’ Rey says eventually. ‘Kylo-- killed him. I was just there at the time.’

‘What are you doing here,’ Finn asks, and she sounds-- so sad, Rey can imagine her own heart breaking. She wants her heart to break. How dare she abandon her like this, betray her like this, after everything she went through to get away from the First Order herself. But Rey doesn’t feel heartbroken. She just feels empty.

‘Luke wouldn’t help us,’ she says. That’s how she got into this mess in the first place, right? Luke fucking Skywalker who couldn’t take a damn moment to want to help his niece before he turned on her. The emptiness begins to pool into bitterness in her chest. That’s an emotion, right? That’s good. ‘So I went to Kylo instead.’

‘Why would you think _she_ would help us?’

‘We’d been talking. Using the force. Apparently Snoke was sustaining it, but I didn’t find that out until I got here. Luke... gave up on us. He gave up on Kylo. He gave up on everything. I wasn’t going to stand around trying to convince him to give a damn. We needed help, we needed... firepower. Kylo has lots of it. And... I don’t know. I thought I could convince her to turn.’

‘But instead, she turned you.’ It’s Rose. Rey looks up sharply, motivated to move again, and meets her eyes. They’re set with realisation. ‘Didn’t she.’

‘No,’ Rey says at the same time Finn does, though their voices are very different. Rey clears her throat, which is feeling small and tight. ‘I did what I did to save the Resistance. The fleet was being picked off one by one. And Kylo wanted me to rule with her. I figured if I accepted, I’d... have the power to stop some of the hurt.’ She swallows. The galaxy presses in at her temples. She continues with renewed vigor, like a rock down a hill. ‘The Resistance would have been destroyed if I hadn’t, and then where would we be. This way they all get to live. I have Kylo’s word she won’t kill them. And--’ She bites her lip. ‘We couldn’t beat them from the outside. So I figured it was worth a shot to try to beat them from within.’

Silence follows again, but it’s not heavy or roaring this time. Finn has stopped rocking. Rey can feel herself returning to her body. She exists in this black room, instead of some point floating in space. The present is vivid and real. She made her decision, and now she’s going to live it.

Finn says, ‘I’m staying with you.’

‘No,’ Rey says instantly. She pulls away from her to sit up properly and look at her face. Her own is stricken. ‘I can’t-- I won’t make you go back to this.’

‘You aren’t making me do anything. That’s the difference.’

‘Finn, you don’t know what you’re saying.’

‘Yes, I do!’ She’s louder now, angrier. ‘I know what I’m doing just as much as you do. I won’t leave you to face this alone. You’re the only thing that’s ever mattered in my life. You can’t just walk into the lion’s den and expect me not to follow. You want to stop the First Order from the inside, I’m right there with you.’

‘Me too,’ Rose pipes up. Rey looks at her, and she shies, but keeps talking. ‘You’re right, Rey. The Resistance isn’t in any shape to fight back. But we can give them the chance to rebuild. We can break down the First Order from its heart. If Snoke’s dead they’ll be in chaos anyway. It’s perfect.’

‘To be perfectly clear, Kylo did make it a condition that the Resistance be disbanded.’

‘Oh,’ Rose says.

‘But others will rise, and we will be ready. Or better yet we can start pruning away the things that need resisting against in the first place.’ She sits up straighter. The others are listening with rapt attention. The thought crosses her mind that this has been a very weird day. ‘If-- Kylo means it that I get to rule alongside her, we can reshape the Order into what the Resistance wanted to create. That’s what I mean by destroying it from within. We can wear away at what makes the First Order so terrible. I’m already figuring out how to manipulate Kylo. It isn’t hard. She just wants people to be nice to her. Like I said, she’s lonely. Probably Snoke did that on purpose.’ 

She frowns as a new bit of sympathy for Kylo blinks alive inside her. She thinks-- she thinks she’s going to have to embrace that. Kylo can still be saved, and she’s going to have to be, whether Rey wants it or not. They’re going to need Kylo on their side if they want to pull this off. And Rey refuses to be another Luke Skywalker.

‘Anyway,’ she continues. The others are looking at her. ‘We can use that to our advantage. She’s Empress now. She’s calling the shots. If we can get her on our side I think we just might be able to do this. We just have to be careful about it. If she thinks we’re working to our own agenda instead of hers she’ll turn on us. That’s what happened to Snoke.’

Silence follows this pronouncement. Finn’s stomach grumbles.

‘Sorry,’ she says. ‘I haven’t eaten since...’

But Rey is laughing softly. It’s wonderful just to have this moment, this little trace of home. She doubts the First Order officers do so much as fart out of turn, which makes her giggle more. Finn and Rose are looking at her oddly, but that’s fine, that’s fine because she’s home. She’s just in another Resistance meeting. They are the Resistance now. They are hope, and they are home.

She may feel a little guilty about it, but she is so, so glad Finn isn’t going to leave her. And Rose seems a good sort. Smart, perceptive, not about to take bullshit. It’ll be good to have another person watching their backs. ‘We can-- we can order food,’ she says, letting her laughter slow. ‘Kylo said we can order anything we need. I just need to figure out how to work the computer.’

‘Computer, show us food delivery options,’ Finn says, and a holographic screen appears midair in front of her and Rey with a big “Access Denied” splashed across it. Finn shrugs and looks at Rey.

‘Maybe she gave me access..? Computer, show us food delivery options.’

At her command the screen collapses and then reappears in the same spot, this time with a list of options. ‘They have restaurants in the First Order?’ she asks, peering at it. She had been expecting a cafeteria setup like in the Resistance, and figured Kylo was just important enough to get food brought to her.

‘Oh yeah,’ Finn says. ‘Most people spend their entire lives shipside here. They have all sorts of things. They even have stuff that the troopers are allowed to access, though we don’t-- didn’t-- get paid very much.’

‘You got paid?’

‘Yeah, well, it’s all going to the same place, it’s more like tickets to show you’re allowed to get fancy food or entertainment or whatever. That way they can make sure the higher-ups have more access to luxuries. I doubt Kylo even has a limit to what she’s allowed to buy.’

‘Huh.’ Rey... isn’t sure how she feels about this. She’s reminded of Unkar Plutt: creating scarcity for certain people even when there’s plenty to go around, just to keep a system in place. She supposes tickets are a good way to make sure people don’t completely burn through a resource, but she’s positive however they’re distributed, it isn’t fair in the slightest. She’ll have to see about that. ‘Well, let’s get some food. Come over here, Rose, so you can see.’ She scoots over, and Finn follows suit. Rose plops down on the sofa on Rey’s other side.

Rey realises as she starts reading the options that she has no clue what most of these things are. The meals they were served in the Resistance were foreign enough. This is an entirely new world. She’s caught between scorn at exclusive luxury, and genuine excitement to try absolutely everything. More than anything though, she’s quickly realising she’s ravenous. ‘You guys can pick, I haven’t even heard of half this stuff.’

Finn reads down the list. ‘Oooh, I’ve never had sushi before.’ She looks at Rey and Rose for their approval.

‘I haven’t had sushi since I was a little kid,’ Rose says. ‘I feel bad taking advantage of power, though...’

‘Yeah, well, we’re going to have to get used to it. This is our job now. To be powerful. We’ll just have to shape the system so it’s not set up to prefer us. I say let’s get sushi.’

‘Do you even know what sushi is?’ Finn asks.

‘Nope,’ Rey says, a heady glee beginning to overtake her. ‘Computer, order sushi. Lots of it.’

After a moment the screen rearranges itself into a list of food items with a cost at the bottom. A cool voice says, ‘Please approve this order.’

Rey reaches out and touches the big “place order” button. The voice says, ‘Delivery time: forty-five minutes.’

‘Okay,’ Rey says, and gets up. ‘I’m going to go take a sonic, I’m sick of this soot. You guys should make yourselves at home. That’s what Kylo told me. We’re going to be here for a while, so might as well.’

Rose and Finn exchange glances, but Rey is feeling suddenly buoyant. She’s here, she’s doing this, she’s not going to sit around feeling sad about it. Finn shrugs and takes off her boots. Rey goes to the fresher.

It’s still black in here. She’s really going to have to do something about that once she gets her own quarters. Even if they don’t sell art here, maybe she can buy some colourful clothing and drape it around the place. She strips, and looks around for the washing droid. It’s in a little alcove, underneath a shelf with towels and various vittles. She opens the hatch, puts her balled up clothes in, figures out what buttons to press, and heads for the sonic. It’s a large stall, not even completely walled in, just with a single divider. There’s a long shelf filled with various bottles against one wall. The head is directly above the drain, and it looks... strange. Rey squints up at it. She wonders if the lights go any brighter in here, or if that too is part of the First Order’s aesthetic. She looks back down to the controls and tries turning one-- and yelps and jumps backwards as water falls out of the ceiling and splashes her.

She hears running footsteps and the bathroom door slides open. ‘Rey,’ Finn says, urgently. ‘Are you okay?’

Rey is laughing. ‘It’s _water!’_ She sticks her hands in the streams, delighting in how cool and refreshing it is, how it sluices the soot from her skin. ‘Finn, come join me, it’s water!’ She sticks her whole head under, still laughing. She’s seen rain before, of course, even Jakku brought the occasional storm. But this is different. There’s so much of it, and it’s so fresh, so nice in this moment. She revels, telling the little voice inside herself saying that this is the product of the worst situation imaginable to go stuff it. It’s _water_ and it’s all hers.

She opens her eyes as she hears Finn step in beside her. She’s naked now too, her beautiful, dark, hairy body. Rey grabs both her hands and pulls her under the water with her. ‘It’s water, Finn!’ She can’t get over the joy and shock of it.

Finn laughs at her kindly. ‘Yeah, I heard some of the higher ups had real water showers.’ She looks up at the shower head, smiling as bright as Rey is. ‘This is-- this is something.’

Rey uses her hands to make the water blast her in the face. She splutters and laughs and splashes Rey back, and they chase each other around the small shower space, batting water at each other and giggling. It’s such a relief after everything that happened. She has water. She has Finn. The galaxy can still be saved, and she’s not going to have to give up everything to do it.

‘I bet Kylo has some really fancy soaps,’ Finn says, rifling through the contents of the shelf. ‘Fuck! Here we go, look at this shit.’ She removes a bottle and reads the label. ‘Brown sugar and vanilla.’ She uncaps it, sniffs it, and offers it to Rey with a ‘Not too bad.’

Rey sniffs the contents of the bottle. She has to draw her face away with how overpowering it is. It doesn’t smell like she associates soap smelling, but sweet and warm, like the occasional dessert in the Resistance cafeteria. ‘Oh, weird.’ She gives it another sniff, prepared this time. She’s not sure it’s what she wants her body to smell like. ‘What else does she have?’

‘Blood orange,’ Finn says, grabbing another bottle and sniffing it herself before handing it to Rey. This one smells bitter and citrusy and reminds Rey of the colour red. ‘That’s a little better, I like that one,’ she reviews.

In this manner they go through Kylo’s numerous soaps. Rey likes blood orange, cedar and citrus, coconut, sage, fresh grass, lemongrass, rainwater, pine, pumpkin spice, and something unlabelled that reminds her of Leia’s funny face creams. She decidedly does not like anything floral. Finn likes brown sugar and vanilla, coconut, hibiscus, rose, kiwi fruit, mint, water lily, almond and raspberry, pumpkin spice, sandalwood, and the green heavy-duty bar she postulates is used for scrubbing grease. She doesn’t like pine. Neither of them like lavender, but judging by the near-emptiness of the bottle, Kylo does. They have fun picking out which to use, too: Rey washes her hair with the rainwater scent (‘You’re supposed to wash your hair?’ ‘You _don’t wash your hair?’_ ) and her body with cedar and citrus, revelling in the fresh, crisp scent. Finn, not wanting to smell funny to Rey, avoids the floral scents and goes for pumpkin spice and coconut.

It’s a delicacy in the shower, drinking in the foreign scents and each other’s company, and it’s a while before they remember the rest of the galaxy exists.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the robe is basically [this](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/db/ce/1c/dbce1ca522505dc8718f2402108f7929.jpg) but with like, twice as much marabou

Eventually Rey turns the water off. She feels considerably happier and lighter than she did earlier today. Her fingers are all puckery and funny. But she’s starving, and they’ve kept Rose waiting long enough. Her clothes are still being dried by the droid, though, and Finn expresses disgust for the sweaty officer’s uniform.

‘Let’s steal some of Kylo’s things,’ Rey suggests. ‘I bet we could wear her shirts as dresses.’ Finn gapes at her. ‘What? I don’t think she gives a damn what I do as long as I stay loyal to her. That’s why we have the chance we do: because now,’ she opens the second door off the fresher, ‘We are the exact people who can get away with raiding Kylo Ren’s boudoir.’ With a teasing smile at Finn, who is still gaping, she slips out of the room.

True to her assumption she finds a bedroom on the other side of the door. It’s as sparse and dark as the living room, though there’s a very large closet with its door left ajar, and some storage space built into the wall. She goes for the closet - they can snoop after they’ve eaten - and throws open the doors. Finn cautiously enters the room, looking around. Rey rifles through Kylo’s clothes. She has _so_ much clothing, mostly though not exclusively black. All of them are longer than she is tall, made of variant, opulent fabrics. The disgust with the rich passes through her again, but she just acknowledges it and waves it along. She knows this is unfair; it’s not really her concern right now.

She stops as she grasps a black mesh robe with more marabou than she has ever seen in one place. She pulls it off the rack to look at it fully. It’s ridiculous. She could probably fit her whole body in one of the arms, and she tries out of curiosity. It fits, covering her in a close mesh veil that pools around her thighs in solid fluff. She starts giggling. Finn, who was looking through Kylo’s vanity drawers, looks up, and snortlaughs. The sleeve slips off Rey, weighed down by the rest of the robe, and she picks it up and puts it on.

‘What do you think?’ she asks, twirling for Finn’s appraisal. It’s so huge on her, she has to tie it nearly wrapped around her double just to stop it slipping off her shoulders. All she can see is the marabou surrounding the collar, and she’s not sure she can find her hands. Finn is laughing again. ‘Brava, brava. You’re the belle of the ball.’

Rey giggles. ‘Okay, your turn. I’m gonna go let Rose know she can take a sonic.’

‘Okay.’ Finn goes to the wardrobe while Rey exits the room. Rose is sitting on the sofa, the coffee table in front of her and end tables beside absolutely covered in food containers. Rey didn’t realise they took that long. But Rose herself captures more of her attention: her drooped shoulders, her frown, her hair falling in her face, the metallic object she’s holding in both hands and studying sadly.

Rey walks over to her, trying and mostly failing not to trip on the robe. Rose looks up and laughs softly. Rey realises that the next thing she’s noticing about her, after how sharp she is, is how somber she seems. Not unfriendly, just serious, and sad. ‘Hey,’ Rey says.

‘Hey,’ Rose says. ‘Um. Nice robe.’ She smiles a little.

‘Thanks.’ Rey can’t help grinning, though it calms as she next speaks. ‘What’s on your mind?’

‘What? Oh.’

Rey goes and sits on the sofa with her, not as close as they were before with all three of them squished together, though the marabou gives her a lot more bulk anyway.

Rose laughs again, still that small noise. ‘Is that Kylo’s?’

‘Yeah. Finn and I needed things to wear after showering, so...’

‘So you stole from Kylo Ren.’

‘Yep.’ Rey shrugs cheerfully. ‘So, anyway, spill. What’s up?’

Rose blinks at her a moment before gathering quietly into herself again, looking at the thing in her hands again, and turning it as she speaks. Closer up Rey can see it’s a large necklace pendant, shaped like a crescent moon. ‘I talked to her,’ Rose says after a couple moments. ‘Kylo.’

‘Now?’ Rey asks, surprised.

‘Just a bit ago. I, um, had to sign for the food and the computer notified her that someone was trying to use her credit account.’

Rey almost laughs at how pedestrian that is.

‘So she called. She’s... different than I imagined.’ Rose frowns at the floor.

‘Yeah, I thought so too when I first saw her unmasked. She’s so-- terrifying, when you’re fighting her,’ Rey frowns too, remembering the forest outside Maz’s castle. It’s not a good memory. ‘But then she takes off the helmet, and you realise she’s just a person, and also that you’re better than her in every way imaginable.’

Rose bursts out laughing. Rey grins. She keeps laughing for a minute or two, and Rey doesn’t interrupt, just smiling, glad to see her happy. She already feels like they’re friends. It probably has something to do with the oath to stay in hell with her. Rose slows down eventually and flashes Rey a grin, the first real smile she’s seen on her face. ‘That’s... kind of the feeling.’

‘Isn’t it? No wonder she wears the helmet all the time.’

Rose giggles. Rey swallows as she remembers just how good Kylo managed to be at manipulating Hux, and her, with those big brown eyes and that wavering voice and some choice truths alone, and her smile sours. She hides it, not wanting to ruin the joke, instead considering the marabou while she searches for something to say.

‘Are you alright?’ Rose asks. Rey looks up. Finn enters the room.

Both the others look over. Finn is looking sheepish in a black silk dressing gown, much too long for her though not nearly as excessively wide as the robe on Rey. It looks like she attempted to roll the sleeves up, though they aren’t staying that way. Rey hollers and applauds and Finn ducks her head. Rose is gaping like she isn’t sure whether to laugh or not. ‘...Wow,’ she settles on.

Finn smiles embarrassedly, and manages to only trip once on her way over to them, which is better than Rey did. She sits down across from them, still smiling.

‘You look good!’ Rey says.

‘I look like a little kid who stole somebody’s clothes.’

‘Well, that’s half true...’ Rose mutters.

‘We look fantastic.’

‘Honestly I’m surprised you can see over all that fluff. Can we eat? I’m starving.’

‘Yes,’ Rose says, moving suddenly to start uncovering trays. Rey focuses on getting her hands out of her sleeves.

They eat. The main topics of conversation are declarations of how good it all is and what the others have to try, all too hungry and distracted to focus on anything more serious. Rey likes sushi. Of course, she thinks she’d have liked cardboard after the day she’s had, but they’re little bites of sour-sweet-savoury-fresh and she is delighted. Rose starts giggling again after Rey does a little shimmy in celebration of each new piece. She’s not sure where this good mood came from, exactly. Necessity? Presence of Finn? She isn’t about to ruin it by overthinking it. Sushi is goooooood.

There’s actually leftovers when they’re done eating, though not many. Rey is still getting used to the concept that this food will be here later and no she does not have to stuff it all in her mouth right now, though the weeks with the Resistance helped. She still eats til she’s full to bursting, and then leans back on the sofa, flopping her head against the top of the back. ‘That was good.’

‘That was so good,’ Finn agrees. She pops another roll in her mouth. ‘I need to stop eating now but this is so fucking good.’

‘There’s a fridge over there, I can put it away,’ Rose says. She’s gone back to being all quiet and pensive. Rey picks up her head to look at her.

‘I can help,’ Finn says, and the two of them start consolidating the remains to fit in a couple containers. There’s not much room for Rey to help as well, so she just sits back and watches dully, wheels turning in her head now that she’s full and unoccupied. She needs to talk to Kylo. She’s tired, and would like to sleep soon, but now that she’s had her time to enjoy herself she feels like she needs to face the situation at hand. So, step one, put some actual fucking clothes on. Rose implied they have the sort of comms that come with visuals here, and she doesn’t want to talk to Kylo naked save for a mesh robe, even if the marabou does cover all her important bits.

She gets up and goes back to the fresher. The washer droid is done with her clothes. She takes them back, gives it a little pat, and changes. She shakes out the robe for crumbs before replacing it in the closet. There’s a full length mirror in Kylo’s bedroom, and she uses it to make sure her hair is tied back respectably instead of haphazardly, and that her clothing is as neat as it’s going to get. It’s not that she’s worried about impressing anybody, but she does feel unnaturally self-conscious, in a way she didn’t when she came here as an enemy. She feels like the eyes of the entire Order are already on her. Maybe Kylo wasn’t wrong in suggesting she buy herself some new clothes. She doesn’t like standing out. It makes her feel unsafe.

She has an idea, and turns to rifle through Kylo’s closet again. It’s then that Finn comes in. ‘Hey.’

She looks around. ‘Hey.’

‘What’s up?’

‘I thought I should speak with Kylo, I just... I don’t like how much I stand out in these clothes. I thought maybe she would have a cloak that wasn’t ridiculous on me, or something.’ She resumes her rifling.

Finn nods, and moves to the other side of the wardrobe to start helping Rey look. ‘I know what you mean. About standing out, I mean.’

Rey nods. She can understand how that would become instinct with a stormtrooper just as much as with a desert rat: the odd one out is the one who gets hurt.

‘I don’t really like borrowing Kylo’s clothes, either, though. Not just because I keep tripping on them,’ Finn continues.

‘She said I could buy myself new clothing. I’ll ask her if she can have you and Rose hooked into the system so you can have permissions to get things as well.’

‘Okay.’

They keep looking in a somewhat somber silence. Finn breaks it after a bit: ‘This is such a ridiculous amount of clothes.’

Rey chuckles. ‘That’s what you get when you’re a fancy dictator, I guess. Lots and lots of clothes.’

Finn makes a noise that’s not quite humorous. ‘Hey, Rey?’ The sound of her moving hangars stops.

Rey looks up, her hands stilling as well. Finn is looking at her. ‘Yeah?’

‘Promise me you won’t be like this? Like... This?’ She gestures at the closet. ‘Not that the clothes are the worst part of it, but...’

‘I know what you mean. I promise. And you’ll be right at my side to let me know if I’m getting too full of myself.’

Finn bridges the few feet between them and hugs her. Rey hugs her back, burying her face in her shoulder. ‘I can’t promise I won’t change,’ Rey says, muffled against the fabric, ‘But I can promise it won’t be into a monster.’

She promises it to herself in the same moment.

‘Thank you,’ Finn says. ‘I don’t want-- I don’t want to lose you. And I promise it too.’

‘I know,’ Rey says. ‘I’m more worried about me than you or Rose.’

Finn takes a step back, hands on either of Rey’s upper arms as she surveys her. ‘You’re better than all of them.’

Rey smiles weakly. ‘I just hope I’m good enough.’

Finn moves one of her hands to cup Rey’s cheek. ‘We’ll be here with you.’ Her eyes have that sort of depthless resolution, that seriousness Rey’s only seen a couple times. She feels braver.

On impulse, she leans forwards and kisses Finn gently. She’s never kissed anyone before, but she knows the principle, even if this is just a brief pressing of lips.

Finn blinks at her as she draws back, and then her face splits into a huge, beautiful grin. Rey grins too; she can’t not.

‘Rey?’ Finn says, trying and failing to swallow her grin. ‘I-- I like you too.’

Rey giggles. ‘Well that much is obvious.’

‘Can I kiss you again?’

‘Yes.’

Finn moves closer and does just that. Rey wonders softly if Finn has kissed anyone before, back when she was a trooper, but then she stops wondering very much and instead just kisses back. Finn’s slightly taller than she is, just enough that she has to lean her head up. The kiss lingers, and repeats, and repeats.

‘I should talk to Kylo soon,’ Rey says softly, and Finn steps quickly back, releasing the hand which she took. ‘No, no, not like that,’ Rey assures her, and darts closer to give her a quick peck. ‘I _like_ kissing you. There’s just-- stuff.’ She waves vaguely.

‘Right,’ Finn says, slightly breathless, ‘Stuff.’

Rey decides stuff isn’t that important.

A few minutes later: ‘Okay, okay, I really am supposed to call Kylo. I have to make sure she’s going to let you stay.’

‘Okay,’ Finn says, and releases her hand again. Rey turns back to the closet, her face warm, a smile she can’t help spreading across her face. She glances at Finn, who is smiling too. Glances back at the clothes. Glances at Finn.

‘I can see how important calling Kylo is to you,’ Finn teases, and Rey sticks out her tongue at her. Finn laughs. ‘It’s _important,_ I just don’t want to do it. Here.’ She pulls out a cloak from the closet. It’s a heavy, rough material, one she would’ve killed for back on Jakku, and the bottom edge is cut asymmetrically. More importantly, it looks like it’s meant to fall around Kylo’s thighs, and so might not be so insanely long on her. She takes it off the hangar and drapes it around herself. It’s definitely too wide, but it’s not too long, and maybe she can pin it with something. She goes to the vanity, which seems like the most likely place for Kylo to keep her brooches. After a minute or so of checking drawers she finds a glittering black one shaped like a rose. It’ll do.

‘Help me fasten this?’ She says, going back over to Finn. ‘Sure,’ Finn says, and takes the rose from her, straightening how the cloak is wrapped with warm, sturdy hands. Rey finds her eyes drifting to her lips. She looks at the floor instead. ‘There.’

Rey looks back up at Finn, and leans up to kiss her one more time, slowly, savouring it, one arm snaked around the back of Finn’s neck. They look at each other after it breaks.

‘It’s going to be alright,’ Finn says, and that’s what Rey’s feeling: not certainty, not safety, but through the haze of nervousness and fear of the future, confidence in herself. Confidence in both of them. She nods, and steps back.

‘You look great,’ Finn adds, and Rey twirls a little so the edge of the cloak swishes with her. She stops to look at herself in the mirror. Not too bad, all things considered. ‘Wish me luck,’ she says.

‘Good luck.’


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i wanted to write about interpersonal interactions not political maneuvering like i fuckin played myself
> 
> anyway thats why this chapter took so long

Rey walks out of the room. Finn follows her. Rose is sitting on a dining chair sideways and staring at the floor, though she looks up as the other two enter. ‘Um-- you two might want to stand, not next to me,’ Rey says. Finn goes over and sits across from Rose, who looks at her. Rey looks around for an opportune place to be on a call. No matter what, the background’s going to be black, so she just stands by the mouth of the little entrance hall, a few steps from the bedroom door. ‘Computer, call Kylo Ren.’

A screen pops up with the text “connecting to Kylo Ren” and a bunch of dots chasing each other in a circle underneath. Rey waits, and not for long. After several seconds this display is replaced with the universal audio symbol and the soft static hum of talking on a comm. Guess she got dressed up for nothing.

‘Rey,’ Kylo says.

‘Hi,’ Rey says, lamely.

‘Have you rested? Can you join our meeting soon?’

‘Y-- yes. Yes I can. But there’s some things I’d like to talk with you about in private, first.’

‘Of course. What is it?’

‘Well-- my friends have decided to join the First Order. They agree with me that this is the best way forwards.’

‘So you weren’t just saying that for Hux?’

Thick silence follows this question. Rey hurries to break it. ‘It’s-- complicated.’ Over at the table, Rose and Finn are both quiet, listening. ‘Do I think this is the best course of action? Yes. Do I like it? No.’

‘That’s fair.’

‘So you’re alright with them staying?’

‘Yes. We’ll find some use for them, I’m sure.’

Rey glances at Finn at this, who has tensed up. Rose reaches over and takes her hand on top of the table. Rey swallows and refocuses on the screen. ‘I’d like them to stay with me. Maybe they could be my aides.’

‘We’ll see about it. There’s more important things we have to deal with first. They’re welcome to stay in my room for right now. You should come to this meeting.’

Rey feels uneasy not having a guarantee of Finn’s -- and Rose’s -- safety, but now doesn’t seem a smart time to push the matter. ‘Okay. Where is it?’

‘Room a.1301. There’s a spare datapad in one of the drawers in my bedroom, you can use the map on it, it’s not far.’

‘Okay. I’ll... see you soon then.’

‘See you.’

The audio cuts out and the screen closes. Rey spends a couple moments staring at nothing, recomposing herself. Kylo is so civil, and yet Rey can’t put aside the knowledge of who she really is. The dichotomy makes their every interaction feel complicated, and with everything that’s happened the feeling’s only gotten worse. And she’s afraid now of what’s going to happen to Finn. And Rose, yes, but she’d be lying if she said she weren’t selfish, and Rose is just a person anyway. Former Resistance, yes, but not a stormtrooper, not a deserter. She doesn’t know if Kylo knows one of the friends she’s talking about is the traitor she tried to kill a few weeks ago, and one of the people responsible for the destruction of Starkiller Base.

Also, some part of her suspects that Kylo might try to keep them apart to keep Rey to herself-- either out of selfish loneliness, or to manipulate Rey into liking her better. Kylo may have said she doesn’t want to be another Snoke, but she also said she’s now the Supreme Leader to Rey’s Knight, and Rey doesn’t know how much of her proclamations are just talk, and how much her subconscious might trick her along the way. She’s been abused for a very long time. In their conversations about all that had happened Leia told Rey Kylo had run away when she was thirteen; now sixteen years ago. She spent all that time believing Snoke cared for her. And now she claims to care for Rey. However much she may hate Snoke’s memory now, Rey’s still extremely wary about being the recipient of that care, especially coming from a ruthless killer. She thinks she has a chance of schooling it if it gets bad, but still.

She takes a deep breath and walks stiffly over to Finn and Rose. They both look up at her.

‘You can still leave, you know,’ she says. ‘You still have a chance to get out.’

‘I’m not leaving,’ Rose says, at the same time Finn says, ‘I said I would stay and I meant it.’

‘Okay,’ Rey says. ‘I just don’t know how this is going to go. I’m going to try my best to talk Kylo into letting you stay by my side. She told me I have more power than anyone else in the Order besides her, but that’s still besides her. I’m going to try to work something out, I just want you to know what you’re getting into.’

Finn’s stoic expression twinges a little, but she nods. She and Rose are still holding hands. Rose nods too, face set. ‘We know what we’re getting into, Rey.’

‘Okay,’ Rey says. ‘I have to go to this meeting, and you two are just supposed to stay here for now. I suppose you heard all that.’

‘We did,’ Rose confirms.

‘Okay. Well. I’ll ask about getting you into the system so you can get some fresh clothes or something. And I’ll ask about BB-8.’

‘Thank you,’ Rose says. Finn is still just keeping her face straight. It looks like it’s taking a lot of concentration.

Rey goes and puts her hand on her shoulder. She looks up. Her face is graver than Rey’s ever seen it. ‘I mean it,’ Rey says. ‘If you need to leave I want you to go. I don’t want you to suffer because of my decision.’

‘And I don’t want you to suffer and not have me there to help. Rey, you said we’re the Resistance now. I can’t leave you to fight that fight alone.’

Rey leans down to kiss Finn’s forehead. ‘Care about yourself, too. I do.’

Finn looks at Rey, a bitter smile in her eyes that her mouth can’t quite follow through on. Rey lets her hand linger on her shoulder as she turns to go back to Kylo’s room.

It takes her a few tries, but she finds the datapad. She also finds several more pieces of jewellery, a couple dildos (she closes that drawer _very_ quickly), a dagger, and a small bottle of unidentifiable and unlabelled pills. She powers it up, and while it’s processing, makes the split second decision to arm herself with the dagger. By the time she’s got it nestled safely the start screen has finished loading. ‘Computer, get me a map to room a.1301 and send it to this datapad.’

It processes for a couple moments, and then a clean-lined - black - map blooms on the datapad screen. ‘Thank you,’ she says, picks up the datapad from where she set it, and leaves the room. Finn and Rose are talking. ‘I’m off,’ she says. ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back.’

‘See you,’ Finn says. ‘Good luck,’ Rose says. Rey nods to both and heads out to the hallway.

The Supremacy is extremely large, but seems to be at least somewhat logically laid out. It doesn’t take Rey long at all to reach her destination. She hesitates outside the door for a moment, but then presses the button to open it. A red light turns on underneath the panel, and turns off after a moment. Well, huh. Is she supposed to knock? She’s saved having to make a decision by Kylo opening the door for her.

She still looks a complete mess. She could probably use a shower, a meal, and a rest herself. At least she’s not crying. She stands aside to let Rey into the room.

It’s a meeting room, blacker even than Kylo’s quarters, though the lights seem to be at a fairly normal level. There’s a long table going down the center with chairs all around it and many screens projected in the air above it. There are two other people here: Hux, coat draped around his shoulders, seated a couple spots from the far end of the table and watching Rey unhappily; and a human dressed in a version of the black officers’ uniform that features a broad white stripe down the chest and similar rings on the sleeves, seated on the opposite side from Hux, and immediately next to the end.

Kylo makes her way at her usual slow pace to said end of the table. Rey follows, feeling uncomfortable. Kylo gestures silently at the chair to the other immediate side of the head, so Rey takes it, and Kylo sits adjacent, facing them all. Rey is very aware of Hux only an empty seat away from her, but instead she cautiously raises her eyes to the person across from her. They’re tall, as tall as Kylo, and almost as broad of shoulders, which is saying something. They have high, noticeable cheekbones, and short blond hair. They don’t look nearly as ill as the other two, only a slight darkness under the eyes at most.

They’re looking back at Rey with blue-grey eyes that are intense in an entirely different way from Hux’s, or Kylo’s. They’re not cold, and they’re not wet and depthless. They’re just impenetrable. Unmissable even as they seem ordinary. But they also hold a surprisingly pleasant curiosity. Rey can only assume this is--

‘Phasma,’ Kylo says, ‘Meet the Lady Rey. Rey, this is Captain Phasma. She’s my wife.’

Rey is jolted out of her cowed discomfort by surprise. Phasma chuckles, leaning her elbows on the table. ‘We’re not married yet, you dingus.’

‘Snoke is dead and we’re fucking married.’

Phasma laughs. ‘This is how she proposed,’ she says to Rey, with a limp wrist in Kylo’s direction and a tone that makes Rey forget for a few moments that these are horrible abusive murderers and not her drinking buddies of several years. Hux is rolling his eyes. Phasma smiles slyly at him. ‘Jealous?’

Lean into the friendliness, Rey thinks. You don’t have to forget who they are but you should lean into the friendliness if you want to get anything done.

‘In Ren’s dreams,’ Hux retorts. ‘I was under the impression that we were having a meeting?’

‘More like my nightmares,’ Kylo says, and Phasma sniggers. Hux rolls his eyes again.

‘Could you not get married before?’ Rey asks.

‘Snoke wanted my main focus to be on the Order,’ Kylo says, tone genuine.

‘And he couldn’t have everyone thinking stormtroopers could be people and do people things,’ Phasma drawls. Rey looks at her, a little surprised. The way Finn always spoke about her placed her as part of the problem, but she supposes that and this aren’t mutually exclusive. Phasma’s just a middle rung on the ladder: far above the ground, but still low enough to get stepped on.

‘We’re going to fucking change that,’ Kylo says, and Rey’s heart buoys enough to shake her from her conflicted discomfort. ‘We’re going to fucking change that.’ She moves her hand back and forth as she says it, a weird aggressive movement, as though trying to chase away gnats.

‘Yes, we are,’ Phasma says, and leans in to a kiss which Kylo meets. Rey looks away and instead at Hux, who looks like he would very much like to possess the ability to roll his eyes out of his skull. His eyes meet hers as they land, and they don’t hold solidarity so much as calculating disgust, but she still feels like she can do this.

 _‘One_ thing at a time,’ he says pointedly, and the two women separate with little smiles lingering on their faces. ‘I see now why you wore that mask, Ren. You need a muzzle.’

Rey swallows her laughter, pressing her lips together, and Phasma covers her mouth to evidently do so as well, a smile crimping her eyes, and glancing at Ren, who snorted inelegantly at the joke. ‘I’m top dog now,’ she says with a sideways smile, and languidly runs her tongue along her upper gum line. Rey’s not sure what the gesture is meant to accomplish but she feels momentarily both intimidated and weirded out. Phasma is grinning. Hux rolls his eyes again.

‘Careful, they’ll freeze that w--’ Phasma teases, but Hux cuts her off. ‘Enough of this nonsense already. Now that Lady Rey is present we should review the plan.’ He scrubs at his face briefly with his leather-clad hands.

‘Yes,’ Rey pipes up, ‘Tell me the plan.’

‘The plan,’ Kylo says, dropping her weird manner and leaning forwards intently, ‘is to tell the rest of the Order that Snoke manufactured the entire conflict with the Resistance in order to encourage patriotism and justify the destruction of the New Republic.’

Rey, once again, blinks. ‘That’s... pretty clever.’

Kylo smiles very self-satisfiedly. ‘I know. Hux thought so too.’

Hux says, ‘Don’t drag me into your masturbatory back-patting. I said I thought it would work.’

‘Mmhmm. It’s clever.’

‘It’s really clever,’ Phasma chimes in, ‘Because it’s going to both vilify Snoke and redeem us to everyone regardless of political opinion. If we can pull this off then the people who actually liked his way of doing things will feel betrayed enough that they won’t pull a coup the second we pull the rug. Obviously some people are going to question it, but everyone questions everything already--’

‘--So while this remains a gamble as it will gain more attention and controversy than any other line we’ve fed the people to date, it’s considerably less of a gamble than trying to enstate ourselves by sheer force or by claiming Snoke acquiesced the throne to us willingly. The latter would open us up to every investigation and power grab imaginable, and the former, well, you can imagine. Ren here--’

‘--I based it off the political ploy Emperor Palpatine used during the clone wars. By manufacturing a seceding government and playing both sides of the war, he was able to drive the Republic to grant him more and more emergency powers until he was able to finally take over entirely and form the Empire. Obviously the situation is different enough that we can’t claim that’s exactly what Snoke was attempting to do but honestly he was kind of stupid to not. There was no way he wasn’t going to have opposition, if he had just gone and founded the Resistance himself he would have controlled both sides of this conflict.’

Rey blinks. She understood all of that, but the last bit sticks in her brain. ‘So... why aren’t we doing that?’ She can’t believe she asked the question even as she hears the words leave her mouth. There are a hundred different ways she could have worded it; she continues to trouble herself with how easily she’s taking to the new situation.

Everyone around her is hesitating too. Kylo opens her mouth, and shuts it. The other two are looking between the two of them, Hux glaring, Phasma curious. Kylo manages to find her words. ‘I don’t think General Organa would exactly be cooperative.’

‘Well, yes, but that’s really only taking into account the most straightforward approach.’ A different future occurs to Rey as she speaks, one where a new Resistance forms and she uses her insider information to help them win. She should not be encouraging this. She really should not be encouraging this. Then again, if she can play both sides--

‘Our Lady has a point,’ Hux says dryly. ‘However, we have the remnants of this Resistance exactly where we want them, so this particular group of rebels is no longer a concern. As Ren pointed out, however, it would be foolish not to anticipate opposition in the future. It’s definitely something to think about.’

Shit. Okay, well-- not worth worrying about. Whatever happens, she’ll make it work. If the First Order rallies its own opposition that doesn’t make it any less of opposition, and the future is a nebulous concept. Kylo looks somewhat embarrassed, but she nods. ‘Keep it in mind for the future. Let’s worry about keeping half the Order from rebelling, first. Um, what do you think of the plan?’ She looks at Rey hopefully.

‘Um-- Well it sounds good. It sounds very solid.’ Rey tries to run through the plan they just told her since distracted away from as fast as she can in her mind, pushing it up against problems and holes that she can’t really think of that fast. She quickly comes up with a better tack. ‘Have you already talked about potential problems that might arise? How we can head those off?’

Hux looks unimpressed, but says smoothly, ‘Obviously people are going to question the story, and some aren’t going to believe us. That’s why we’re going to fabricate hard evidence and lean on trusted officers to lead by example of faith in us. The biggest thing to worry about is our opposition solidifying enough to attempt a coup. We’ll need to keep a close eye on that; as you and Ren suggest, people on the inside will be to our benefit.

‘We don’t want to actually inspire anyone against us, though. I don’t think purposefully forming opposition is a good tactic in this particular area. We don’t need a civil war. But we will have individuals in every level of operation to keep an eye on the people’s opinion of us, and alert us to any bubbles of opposition that may grow to actually threaten us. I’d prefer to use blunt force as a last resort -- the three of us have already agreed that will only breed tension until we suffer a break. But we can use reassignments, reconditioning, and if anyone openly opposes us, court-marshalling, to break up pockets as we need to. As long as dissenters cannot rally, we can survive their existence.’

‘Also I think we need a suggestions box,’ Phasma adds. Rey looks at her, surprised by the brevity after Hux’s paragraphs. Phasma shrugs. ‘One of Snoke’s main problems is he didn’t listen to shit. It was all secret plans and do what you’re told and talk to your CO about problems on the down-low. I think it’ll earn us a lot of points with the lower-levels if they can actually talk about what’s up without fear of being whacked where they stand.’

Hux: ‘We will need a way to control the flow thereof; we won’t have time to listen to complaints day and night and there are a lot of people in this army. But, yes.’

Phasma shrugs again. ‘Complaints office. Closely monitored for corruption. It’ll take some time for people to believe we’re actually going to listen to them. But if we can make them believe it? Armies are built on the backs of common men, and this is no exception.’

Break up pockets of resistance and win over the grunts by listening to them. Seems simple enough on the surface, at least. And Phasma is... surprisingly moral. Rey’s still not expecting a saint, but she’s glad for what she can get, not least because she seems to be a major influence on Kylo. ‘Anything else?’ She’s trying to think if she has anything to add, but really, she just wants to get clued in, have the power to veto anything horrible, and then talk to Kylo alone.

‘On this particular topic?’ Rey nods. Hux sighs. ‘Well, there is the little matter of the inevitable questions of _why us._ Why do we, of all people, deserve to take the helm now that we’re discrediting Snoke’s every decision, including that which put us in power in the first place.’

Rey looks at Hux for a long moment. He’s looking at her with cool grey eyes beneath orange lashes. It’s a fucking good point, but there was something catlike in his consistently delicate tone. Phasma says dryly, ‘Because Kylo has a lightsaber.’

‘Well yes,’ Hux says, ‘There’s that.’

‘I thought you didn’t want to use force.’ She’s not taking her eyes off Hux’s face. She knows he still doesn’t like that she’s here, she’s not stupid. And he needs to know that.

‘Not against the masses, no. But there’s nothing wrong with a little show of what we could do, if we wanted. On the other hand, being convincing is so much more-- convenient.’

There’s definitely something catty there. His gaze is broad enough to catch Kylo too. Rey wishes she were better positioned to keep her eyes on both of them. The tension in the room is slowly climbing the walls. ‘So,’ Hux says carefully, ‘What’s your excuse? Why do you deserve to lead the First Order?’

Rey refuses to back down on instinct. ‘You first.’

He smiles slightly. ‘Very well. I earned this position. Snoke may have placed me on his flagship but I climbed the ranks to general faster than anyone else in this organisation and that happened because I’m good at what I do. If I am to be removed from my post it should be via due process, because I’m not assuming a dictatorship. I’m _doing my job.’_

They glare at each other. Hux still has that slight smile on. Rey tries to assemble her thoughts without breaking eye contact, which feels as though it should be easier than fighting all eight of Snoke’s guard at once, but isn’t. She could cop out and say that she isn’t ruling, Kylo is, and she’s standing at Kylo’s side, but she doesn’t want to. It’s not the right move here. But, hang on--

‘I’m doing mine too,’ she says, doing her best to let ice crystallise on her syllables, like she’s heard Leia do, like Hux was doing just now. ‘As a Knight of Ren. As the person who infiltrated the Resistance and brought them to their knees. As the person who discovered Snoke’s involvement and brought it to your attention.’

They continue to stare at each other, but Rey feels braver, now. It’s a hell of a lie she’s just concocted, and she knows he knows that, but really, he’s really just practice scrutinisation. He’s right, she’s going to need an excuse, and she’d much rather be the shadow agent than the Resistance defector. Even saying the words has lit a fire within her, like she’s believing her own story that she’s someone with the authority to stare General Hux down.

‘If you were working for us,’ he asks, ‘Why were you the subject of an enormous manhunt?’

‘Deep cover,’ she says, still not breaking eye contact. ‘And or bureaucratic negligence. And or Snoke’s damn fault.’

There’s another long pause. Rey’s barely aware of Kylo and Phasma, to the point where they could in fact be making out again.

Hux smirks. ‘Well done.’ He takes a sip from his small water glass, arm relaxed and triumphant. ‘The people just might buy it.’

Rey lets herself relax too, or rather, the relaxation comes for her, her body slumping as she lets out the breath she was holding, feeling the fire die down. This is going better than expected, she realises, though she wasn’t expecting much. But after making Hux acquiesce-- she actually feels like she can do this. Like she can make herself belong here; and through brute force and twists of her wrist make this into a place where she belongs. ‘Anything else, General? You said you were going to fabricate hard evidence; do you need us for that? DNA, faking footage..?’ She doesn’t know much about it, but she’s seen some holos and heard Han talk about some heists.

Shit. Thinking about Han is still painful, but it’s easier to wave away as something for later with Hux talking to her. ‘What? No, I meant electronic evidence. I’ve already got some people on it, though it’ll take them several more hours. It’ll give us some time to talk logistics.’

She blinks some itchiness out of her eyes. ‘I’m not going to get to sleep anytime soon, am I?’

Hux smiles grimly. ‘None of us are.’


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> detailed description of flashback in this one, nondetailed description of vomit
> 
> im gonna make the warnings at the start of the fic more coherent but first im gonna sleep. also gonna update the tags.

Rey is exhausted by the time the meeting’s over. Hux wasn’t kidding about having hours worth of material to discuss. Rey grew well familiar with the endless Resistance meetings in her few short weeks with them; there’s just a lot of things that need _discussing_ before any important decisions can be made even by trusted figureheads. She’s sat in a lot of them with the Resistance, recounted her tale for several different board rooms, which she quickly got used to. She’s good at quickly getting used to things, and it turns out, several hours is enough for her to get used to meeting with these three assholes.

It’s not quite like being in the Resistance, though, because instead of the twitchy, earnest sort of social anxiety that comes from presenting important information and ideas to people you admire, she has been imbued with a sort of fangy mania. Her nerves are jangled, her mind is numb, she was tided over as well as briefly distracted by the meal they had brought to them (orange flavoured chicken! it is sticky and sweet and good!) but really she’s about ready to pass out for a solid twenty hours at the least, despite the caf she was continually offered and continually accepted. That’s probably part of the reason she feels so fiercely ready to build a new order with her bare hands despite also wanting to lie down on the meeting room floor, actually. If this is what Kylo’s life is like all the time Rey is starting to understand why she’s like that.

Rey remembers her purposes, though, and she corners Kylo after the meeting, who obligingly shoos Phasma and a suspicious Hux out before turning to Rey. ‘I’d like to talk to you, too, but I daresay we’ve done enough talking for today.’

Rey, a hundred pleas for Finn’s case piling on the end of her tongue, lets them drop and lets her shoulders slump. She sighs. ‘Yeah. Fuck, I’m tired.’ She scrubs at her face. ‘Do you have to do this a lot?’

‘Usually they’re not this long.’

‘Thank the fucking moons and stars.’ She keeps scrubbing at her face as though expecting it to accomplish something, letting her hands fall dejectedly when after a few moments it in fact, does not. She sighs again and looks up at Kylo, jangled mind realigning for a moment to her goal. ‘Can I at least talk to you a little?’

‘Sure. We should go back to my quarters, though. Hux is going to spy on this footage later.’

Rey blinks. ‘Oh.’ A horrible thought dawns on her. ‘But he can’t listen in on your quarters?’

‘Not unless he has accesses I don’t know about.’

Rey’s heart has plummeted to her stomach. ‘Right.’

‘Sorry, I should have mentioned. You’re always being watched.’ She smiles a bitter, serene little smile. Rey stares at her. Quite apart from how okay Kylo is with this, she’s kicking herself for not thinking of it. For not remembering how dangerous even this very place is, for not being more on her guard. Fuck, what was she thinking? How much did she say outside of Kylo’s quarters, and what if Hux can access what she said inside it?

She answers her own rhetorical question: then you’ll fucking take care of it, that’s what. Hux can be dealt with just like everything else.

With great effort she wrenches her attention back to the present. ‘Yeah, that’d’ve been nice.’

Kylo has the grace to look a little ashamed. Fuck, she looks terrible, Rey thinks for the nth time today. She looks like a dead woman walking, and again, Rey’s beginning to see why. ‘Don’t worry about Hux,’ she says, with another little smile. ‘We’re on the same side.’

Is she just saying that for the cameras, or does she really believe it? Or just believe in her own ability to bring him to heel? Rey stares at her again, questions she wants to ask dying on her tongue. She’s afraid to say anything now. She knows Hux suspects her of ulterior motives. But... maybe she can win him over somehow, like she’s mysteriously won over Kylo despite all her attempts to the contrary. She settles for, ‘Let’s just go.’

They walk out of the meeting room together. The hallway is vacant. They don’t speak. Rey’s wandering mind starts taking inventory of things she still needs to take care of: Hux, Finn and Rose, BB-8, getting some damn clothes. If she can’t get Hux on her side maybe Kylo and Phasma will be enough, and they can overpower his will as a trio. Of course, she needs to get Phasma on her side too, but Phasma at least doesn’t actively distrust her, or if she does she isn’t showing it. And fuck, she needs to keep Kylo on her side, too. At least Kylo knows why she’s here. But Kylo also thinks she’s here for her, probably. She doesn’t know what Kylo thinks.

She might’ve been here for Kylo, once, she realises. But Kylo’s refusal to save the Resistance until Rey acquiesced soured her to that idea. They were just both playing their own sides, and they still are. Kylo’s the galaxy’s last hope, but it’s not because she’s kind or good or because she wants to be. It’s because she can be manipulated.

Rey realises with a sensation of time freezing that that’s what Snoke thought, too.

She feels, for a moment, like she can’t breathe, and though she is walking down the corridor she is standing still and the corridor is moving around her, and it is warping and stretching. She knows Kylo is speaking but she can’t hear her. She can’t hear and she can’t move but she is moving, and she can’t breathe but she can feel her heartbeat in her hands. Her arms belong to someone else’s body. The world is a fishbowl of dark grey on every side, breath catching in her throat again and again and again. She glances around desperately for purchase. She can’t see Kylo anymore. She can’t see anything anymore.

She is not there, then, but suspended in the air in the cavernous throne room, and all that is above her is red, there is no ceiling and no space there just the colour, just the endless colour, and everything she is belongs to someone else as it always has only this time it’s not okay, it’s not okay, it’s not okay--

She’s not okay--

Eventually Rey realises what she’s actually looking at is darkness, and that the darkness is from having her face buried in her arms. After a few moments more she realises she is breathing, and that she is breathing heavily, and that she is sitting. Slowly -- slowly -- she dares to move her arms. The muscles in them are held tightly, and she doesn’t know how to make them relax, or in fact make them do anything at all. Somehow they obey her anyway, and somehow she picks her head up. She feels tinny. She feels as though she is shaking though she is holding very still.

She’s sitting in a hallway, as nondescript as the rest on the Supremacy. She looks around. Kylo is sitting cross legged on the floor to her left, a good couple feet between them, a datapad bright in her lap but watching Rey.

‘Can you hear me?’ she asks. At first it sounds like it is from a great distance, but after a moment Rey realises that it wasn’t, and after another moment that it didn’t actually sound like that at all.

Rey nods and looks away. Her mouth is dry and her throat feels incredibly sore. She swallows with difficulty in an attempt to find her voice. ‘What--’ she takes a breath. ‘What happened?’ Her voice is so hoarse she can barely hear herself speak, and the air necessary to speak at all feels as though it’s coming from an empty tank.

‘You had some sort of episode; you can answer that better than I can.’

Rey turns her head to look at Kylo again. She looks calm, eyes filled with their usual gentle sadness. ‘I meant... with my...’ she tries to gesture vaguely, but instantly decides it’s not worth it. ‘Body,’ she finishes.

‘Oh. Well. You started screaming, and then you curled up in a ball against the wall there. I had this hallway closed off, I figured you didn’t need extra attention.’

‘Oh. Th. Thank you.’ She swallows again, throat desperate for what it can get. ‘How long was it since...’ She trails off.

‘Since you started screaming? About fifteen minutes.’

‘I was screaming for fifteen minutes?’

‘I was impressed too.’

She laughs, and although it comes out silent some part of her feels infinitely better for it. She still feels like she’s shaking, and still can’t tell if she is, but some part of her feels more real, more tangible. Her thoughts are like a dropped armful of frogs, and the second she tries to catch one it hops away again, further into the blackness of the hallway. She likes frogs. They’re very good. The first time she saw them in real life was in a big tank in Maz’s castle... 

The frog hops out of her hands again, and she remembers where she is. ‘Can I have water?’

‘Yes. Do you want me to bring you some, or do you want to go somewhere else?’

Rey takes a moment to consider the question, and gets distracted by the fact that it’s Kylo asking it. She’s had time, over the past few months, to get used to the idea of people being kind to her. But it isn’t what she’d have expected here. Furthermore the small feral child that lives curled up in her chest wants all the water and thinks Kylo is very shiny for giving it to her, and then the frog wriggles free. What was the question again?

Rey stares at the floor for a bit before she hears footsteps, and looks up. A stormtrooper approaches trepidatiously carrying a pitcher of water and a plastic glass. Kylo stands in a fluid motion and crosses the remaining couple meters to them. ‘Thank you. Tell no-one about this.’

‘Sir,’ the trooper says, and salutes once Kylo has relieved them of their burden. Kylo gives them a little nod and they about-face, and walk back down the corridor.

Kylo drops gracefully back to her knees next to Rey and pours her a glass of water. ‘Here.’

Rey takes it with both hands and drinks it in one go, and fuck, water will never stop being the most delicious wonderful thing to ever exist ever. She holds out the cup for more, wanting to slump and curl up against the wall but that would spill the water so she won’t. Instead she watches the water pour -- miraculously! -- into the cup, and once it has stopped pouring she drinks it all down again, and then again.

‘That’s all there is,’ Kylo says after the third time. Rey looks up at her and for a split second nearly surges forwards and bites, but she is too tired to do that. Instead she just stares and would like to be glaring but even to furrow her brow is more energy than she currently has. Kylo seems to get the message anyway. Maybe she is glaring after all. It’s hard to tell. ‘There’s more in the room. You can have it when we get there. Can you stand?’

Rey pouts. She doesn’t _want_ to stand. But she wants more water so she stands anyway, rocking onto her knees and a hand before pushing herself up, the other arm keeping the glass tucked safe to her chest. The upright world tilts dangerously when she gets there, and she stumbles but catches herself.

‘It’s this way, it’s only two more hallways,’ Kylo coaxes. She starts walking backwards, still facing Rey as she leads her. Rey follows her, mind almost pleasantly blank. There was something she was supposed to care about, she’s sure, but she doesn’t. She cares about water. The nice lady has some. The world is still very blurry around the edges, and Rey can’t actually quite look at Kylo, who is just a dark mass at the periphery of her vision. Still, she manages to follow her, to trot forward under some power that is not her own.

She hears a door woosh open and follows Kylo through it, the noise breaking the blurriness a little. She hears swift footsteps and looks up, gives looking up up as a bad job, and looks down again. She can see bare dark feet... It’s Finn! Finn has cute stubby toes. Her toenails are all nice neat lengths. But wasn’t she dead? Wasn’t she collapsed on the snow, a lightsaber humming angry in Rey’s hands and her jaw set tight and snarling as she faced down--

Wasn’t that being torn out of Rey with everything else?

Rey is on the floor again. Finn is by her side, one warm steady hand on her shoulder. ‘What did you do to her?’ Finn is snarling, and instead of very far away it is very close by, and Rey flinches at the loud sound. ‘I didn’t do anything, she--’ Kylo begins, at once hurried and sniped and measured, and Rey stops listening. For a moment her mind is a perfect plain black slate. Then she notices Finn’s hand again. It’s so real. Finn’s real. Finn’s real.

The talking noises die down as Rey slumps against Finn. Kylo says something else and then walks away, and maybe some other stuff happens, but then Finn is shifting to sit on the floor beside her and put her arm around her proper. Finn, who is solid and alive and warm and not dead, and the thought sends a shiver through Rey again and doesn’t slip through her fingers like the rest. Why can’t it do that? That would be so nice of it. She doesn’t want to be in the dark and snow.

But then Finn touches her hair, combs her fingers flat against Rey’s skull along the grain to her buns, and does it again, and again, and it’s the most wonderful feeling in the world, Rey could cry. She doesn’t. She whimpers and butts her head up into the touch. ‘I’m here, I’ve got you, I’ve got you,’ Finn says over and over, a nice low hum. Her fingertips are wide and perfect.

A shape moves in front of her and she growls in warning, but then she realises that shape is holding out a glass of water. She takes it in her free hand, still holding onto the first glass with the other, and drinks it all in one go again. The dark shape pours her more. She drinks two more glasses and feels sick with it but keeps drinking, and on the fourth she vomits water all over the floor. Her eyes grow big as she takes into account that there was _too much water inside of her,_ how is that _possible._ That shouldn’t be possible.

She feels sick now, not all over, but nauseated. She doesn’t want to finish the fourth glass anymore but she does, until a wide dark hand takes it from her. She snarls and lunges forwards but quickly loses all energy again and just winds up butting against a chest she now remembers is Finn’s. ‘You’re making yourself sick,’ Finn says. ‘There’s going to be more water later. It’s not going to go away.’

Rey snarls weakly, because clearly that’s not correct, but now she’s slumped onto Finn’s lap and can’t find the energy to move again. She tries pawing her hand in the direction of the water glass, an inelegant swipe, but fails to take actually grabbing it into account, and instead knocks it from Finn’s grasp. It tumbles to the floor and spills, the contents quickly becoming lost amidst the puddle she regurgitated. 

Rey starts crying loudly. The ceiling above her is black and she can see arms and she’s not even trying to catch the frogs anymore, just letting them hop all over the place while she lies on the floor and cries. Finn lifts her up into her lap proper and wraps her arms around her, and Rey buries herself in her nice dark Finn and fails to think about anything. Finn murmurs soft things and rocks slowly back and forth with her. Rey tries to think but every time she does she sees night and snow for an instant before her mind goes blank again.

A sudden yelp wakes her, and Finn says, ‘Why is there a knife taped to your cleaning droid!?’

Kylo trots over. ‘Her name is Darth Stabby.’

Finn hurries to her feet, not letting go of Rey, and Rey ends up standing too in the process. Once she’s there she realises it isn’t so bad. She feels a bit clearer now. She can’t really remember what happened over the past however long-- oh right. Stuff. She stops thinking about it in favour of being upright. ‘You’re fucking insane,’ Finn is saying.

‘Don’t be mean to her.’

‘She fucking stabbed me!’

‘Yes, that’s why she’s called that.’

Rey starts laughing. At first she’s just giggling at Kylo’s dumb robot but then she can’t seem to stop. The weight of the day sets in on her til she’s choking out this strange little noise. Both Finn and Kylo are looking at her. ‘Come on,’ Finn says, and glares at Kylo, and walks Rey over to the fresher.

It’s nice to be in a different room, Rey thinks, as Finn deposits her on the closed toilet. She looks around, taking in the room for the second time. At least the black is broken up by the rippled glass wall of the sonic, and the silver faucets. There’s a big tub built into the corner with a faucet above it that Rey didn’t really care to investigate before. She looks at it for a couple moments before her attention is diverted back to Finn, who is sitting on the edge of it to examine her thigh.

Rey searches for her voice. ‘Is it bad?’

She’s also looking at Finn properly now too; Finn is wearing black trousers that fit her reasonably well, presumably from the officer’s uniform she showed up in, and the white shirtsleeves to match. ‘No,’ she says, though she doesn’t sound happy about it. ‘Just bleeding a little. I wonder if--’

She gets up and roots around the fresher closet. Rey just watches. She feels wrung out, and like while she would be up to doing things such as moving or thinking if she had to be, she would really rather not. ‘A-ha!’ Finn says, and comes back over with a pack of large sticky bandages. ‘I don’t know why the fuck she had to arm her cleaning droid-- I don’t know why I’m even surprised--’ she says as she strips her trousers, wipes the thumb-length wound clean, and presses a bandage over it. She looks down at her leg, sighs, and looks back up at Rey. They stare at each other in silence.

‘Holy fuck,’ Finn says after a few moments. ‘I just yelled at Kylo Ren.’

A smile breaks across Rey’s face. She may not be able to feel much for herself right now, but she can feel for Finn. ‘Yeah, you did.’

Finn smiles back. Rey loves her smile. Her teeth are so white, and it’s so wide, so much of her face, so much of her. Her eyes sparkle like she knows every secret in the world.

Rey leans forwards and kisses her, leans her forehead against hers, and then promptly falls off the toilet seat with a yelp. ‘Are you okay!?’ Finn asks, and helps her up onto the edge of the tub next to her, but Rey is laughing.

‘It’s... been a very long day,’ she explains.

Finn looks at her with love and exasperation and Rey kisses her again, unable to help herself. They spend a few minutes just kissing, again and again, Finn’s strong hands on either side of Rey’s torso to keep her from falling. Rey’s starting to realise just how tired she is, but this is nice, and she doesn’t want to break it.

‘What happened?’ Finn asks eventually.

Rey lets out a puff of breath. ‘Ugh.’ She rubs at her eyes. Fuck. Thinking. ‘I, um...’ What did happen? She starts at the beginning. ‘Well, the meeting went on really long. We had to talk about a lot of logistics. And then I was walking back to the room with Kylo, because I wanted to talk to her about letting you stay, and about BB-8 and Rose too and that sort of thing, and she said that there’s security cameras everywhere except nobody has the permissions to access the ones in here so we were going to talk in here.’ So far, so good.

‘Wait a second,’ Finn says. ‘Does she have the permissions? Can she see what we were talking about earlier?’

‘Um.’ Shit. Panic wracks Rey’s body, but she’s too tired for it to stay for very long. They’ll shoot that horse when they get to it. ‘I... have no idea.’

‘...Right,’ Finn says, and spends a moment just staring hard at the opposite wall. ‘Uh.’

‘Not like we can do anything about it.’

‘Maybe you can figure out how to delete the footage?’

Ugh. That’s too much _thinking._ Rey puts a hand to her temple. ‘Maybe.’

‘Sorry. You were talking about what happened to you.’

‘No, this is important. I’m just so tired...’ she trails off and rubs at her eyes.

‘Do you need to sleep? We can talk about this later.’

‘Mmn.’ Decisions are also too much thinking. She scrubs at her face. She can remember Hux doing the same thing repeatedly in the meeting, and might find it funny if she was feeling any emotions right now.

Finn is waiting for her, which is probably nice of her, but Rey is too stupid for that kind of responsibility right now. She gropes around for something to do next. It sounds way easier to talk than to move, so she continues with her story. ‘So um... Snoke...’

She stops there. She knows vaguely what she wanted to communicate, but trails off as she stares up into the face of that concept, into the red throne room. It’s not like before; she’s still vaguely aware of her surroundings, of Finn’s arm around her back, and the black tiled room in front of her. She tries to recalibrate, but is too tired to get very far.

‘Rey?’ She can hear Finn say it, but the noise fails to move her. ‘Rey?’ She’s more alarmed the second time. That’s not good, she doesn’t want to alarm her. Rey thinks she would like to frown, but doesn’t. ‘Rey, are you okay?’

She should probably answer, shouldn’t she. ‘Nnnygh,’ she says, and manages to make herself tip over to lean on Finn entirely.

‘Rey,’ Finn says again, still alarmed. Oh no. It didn’t work. Rey’s out of energy. ‘Rey, did he do something to you?’

He did, Rey thinks. He sure as fuck did. She wishes Finn could read her mind, because talking is too hard. She manages to nod, though, and with great effort slurs, ‘But that’s not...’

She hopes that got the point across. Finn is holding her again, though, which feels nice. She nuzzles against her chest a little. She really wants to just go to sleep right there, and realises she lacks the willpower to not as her eyes close.

She wakes instantly again with a little start to someone yelling something. Finn. She’s lying on Finn. And Kylo and Rose have just run into the bathroom. Rey turns her head to look at them, blinking. Finn points at Kylo. ‘You. Tell me what Snoke did to her.’

Kylo’s brow furrows, her gaze sharpening on Rey. ‘I don’t... think he did anything lasting, unless there’s some sort of mental damage--’

‘What. Did. He. DO?’

‘Oh. He read her memories.’

‘What does that _mean!’_

‘Well, she was very strongly resisting, so I imagine it hurt.’

Rey laughs weakly. Everyone’s attention snaps to her.

‘You’re okay,’ Finn says, a bit of a desperate gasp in it.

‘Y. Yes, fuck, I’m... sorry.’ She tries to sit up, realises she doesn’t have a good reason to do so, and gives up. ‘Didn’t mean to scare you. I’m just sleepy...’

She lets her eyes close again, though doesn’t drift off. Kylo is saying, ‘She also had a panic attack, or a flashback, or something similar. That’s why she was so upset when we came in.’

Rey remembers, vaguely, a snippet of thought she had in the hallway. _That’s what Snoke thought, too._

Well, fuck her. She’s not dealing with that one until she’s had some sleep.

Suddenly resolved, she drags herself to be standing, and only wobbles a little. Finn is standing too in an instant, and puts her arm around her as Rey starts stumbling over to the bedroom. She lets Finn remove her cloak and dagger before she collapses face-first and sideways onto the big black bed. She’s asleep the second her head touches the mattress.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> did i imply poe is at least a little force sensitive? yea, but he's not really gonna show up in this fic much unless it writes itself in a direction i really don't expect. im thinking he's kind of to the sky without wings esque in terms of force sensitivity, even though that one isnt gonna be compliant with this one in terms of kylos backstory. thats a good fic btw. thats a really good fic.
> 
> remember when rey got tortued? pepperidge farms remembers

**Author's Note:**

> im steamworkblue.tumblr.com, feel free to shoot me a reply
> 
> plz comment if you liked it & would want more, im a greedy bitch and i need encouragement


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